


I Like My Men Like I Like My Coffee (Purple and Kind of Glittery)

by zade



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bellamy is a janitor, Confrontations, Fae & Fairies, Fluff, Get Together, I am really sorry, Light Angst, M/M, Memory Charms, Murphy is a really crappy fairy, non-consensual magic-ing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-03-20
Packaged: 2018-03-18 16:46:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3576693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zade/pseuds/zade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy takes the cup from his hand and looks at it skeptically.  It’s lavender, smells sort of spicy, and is very much not a cappuccino.  “This is not a cappuccino.”</p><p>“No, but it’s better, trust me.  Try it, Bellamy,” Murphy says with a lifted eyebrow.  Bellamy holds it in his hand cautiously and blinks at it.  It make him almost too happy to think when Murphy says his name, which just reinforces that he really needs to get out and meet people.  Murphy rolls his eyes with a dramatic sigh.  “If you like it, it’s free.  If you don’t like it, I’ll make you a cappuccino that will also be free.  Either way, you win; everything is free.”</p><p>Written for the prompt: murphamy coffee shop au. You got a coffee shop au with fairies sorry not sorry</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Like My Men Like I Like My Coffee (Purple and Kind of Glittery)

**Author's Note:**

> OR: Happiness Lingers
> 
> I'm sorry I can't write a serious Bellamy to save my life
> 
> warnings for: really the only real one is non-consensual magic-ing, but it's not even a bad thing so
> 
> beta'd and given a really emphatic seal of approval by the ridiculous [hateboners](www.hateboners.tumblr.com)  
> (they wanted it titled MurFae)

Bellamy had found the café (called Kaffeine, with a K, much to his irritation) the third day after he had moved. It is small, artsy; the kind that attracts mostly college students and adults with a pretentious appreciation for overpriced coffee. It is populated with futon couches and the walls are lined with bookshelves.

It is run by a single man, probably a little younger than Bellamy, and dammit if he didn’t make the best fucking coffee in the city. Without meaning to, he found his way to the café every morning before work.

A Starbucks would have been faster.

Bellamy waits patiently. He has gotten used to the long line of costumers wanting more complicated orders than him, but it still makes him mildly anxious. He has been anxious since he moved. Leaving his family behind and living without them, he has found, is harder than he anticipated.

When he finally gets through the line of college students in skinny jeans and scarves, he has practiced his order so many times that he blurts it out without prompting.

“Cappuccino, double shot. Please.”

The man behind the counter, who Bellamy is convinced is the owner because he’s the only person Bellamy has ever seen there, scoffs. “Well at least you remembered some of your manners.”

Bellamy winces. “Sorry.” He instantly feels terrible. He’s just stressed, he’s always stressed, and coffee is the best part of his mornings, but until he’s ingested it he’s basically a sleep-deprived rudeness monster.

His precocious little shit of a sister (who he loved very dearly) would have called him untenable. 

The owner—and really, Bellamy’s been coming here for close to six months and eyeing him up everyday, he should learn the guy’s name—shrugs him off exaggeratedly and begins grinding coffee beans.

Bellamy sighs. He’s ruined the one good part of his day: a cute guy hand grinding him an amazing cup of coffee. The rest of his day is going to be hell. A college education wasn’t supposed to end with him working as an elementary school janitor and taking night classes to become anything else.

On the plus side, his coffee-maker gives his ass a little shake, and Bellamy counts his blessings.

“Murphy,” his barista says, turning around and watching Bellamy flush as his gaze snaps from his ass to his eyes. “My name is Murphy. Just you know, by the way.”

Murphy turns back around and Bellamy smiles, part embarrassed, part genuinely happy. He hasn’t been happy in a while, now. He had sort of forgotten what that felt like.

“Bellamy,” Bellamy says after too long a moment in thought. “Is my name.” There goes that little bubble of happiness, now buried too far to locate under shame and embarrassment.

Murphy pauses, then reaches down into the cabinets below him and starts rapidly mixing things. He is squatting and moving quickly, so Bellamy can barely see what he’s doing. When he finally hands the cappuccino to Bellamy, Bellamy realizes Murphy is crying, swiping at his eyes. 

“Jesus, you okay man?”

Murphy waves him off, still extending the cup to Bellamy. “Got steam in my eyes. Hazard of the job.”

Bellamy takes the cup from his hand and looks at it skeptically. It’s lavender, smells sort of spicy, and is very much not a cappuccino. “This is not a cappuccino.”

“No, but it’s better, trust me. Try it, Bellamy,” Murphy says with a lifted eyebrow. Bellamy holds it in his hand cautiously and blinks at it. It make him almost too happy to think when Murphy says his name, which just reinforces that he really needs to get out and meet people. Murphy rolls his eyes with a dramatic sigh. “If you like it, it’s free. If you don’t like it, I’ll make you a cappuccino that will also be free. Either way, you win; everything is free.”

Bellamy considers this, shrugs and takes a small sip. It’s delicious, like the best-drink-he’s-ever-had-in-his-life good, like possibly-better-than-sex-good. “Jesus, what is this?” He asks, taking a much larger gulp.

Murphy smiles a little flippantly, wiping his eyes once again. “Just something I’m trying out for the day. Glad you like it.”

Bellamy does, he really really does. It fills him up with a buzzing heady feeling that feels familiar but also like he’s forgotten. He feels too warm all of a sudden, and realizes he’s smiling like an idiot, but he can’t stop, and he doesn’t want to stop.

He slips three dollars into the tip jar, and makes his way out of his favorite coffee shop, with honestly the best anything he’s ever had in his hand, which out in the sunlight is not only lavender but sort of glittery.

He finishes the rest of it on his way to work, and realizes he’s whistling when Clarke, the school nurse, stops him in the hall, as he is mopping, or rather, dancing around with a mop.

It’s first time he’s ever been happy and in a jumpsuit.

“Bellamy, you’re,” she gives him a once over that would have had him blushing had they both not been as gay as a pride parade. “Glowing. Are you high?”

“What?” Bellamy pauses and takes stock of himself. He doesn’t think he’s high. He doesn’t feel fuzzy or groggy or any other y-word that he associates with drugs. He feels…happy. He feels so happy he could burst out of his skin. Oh god, maybe he is high. “I think I’m just happy.”

Clarke crosses her arms over her chest and nods slowly, and only a little bit skeptically. “What are you happy about?”

Bellamy stops to take stock of himself. There is nothing for him to be happy about, really. He is still single, his job is still a dead-end job, and way below his personal expectations for himself, and night school is still hard and exhausting and at night. Really, the only thing that is different today is—

The bell rings. Bellamy hurries out of the hall, and Clarke sighs in defeat, retreating to her office. He waves goodbye, still whistling as he puts the mop away and gets ready to change the trash bags in the cafeteria.

Charlotte meets him for lunch. It’s technically against school policy, but she gets bullied and they eat in the lobby in full view of the principal’s office, and she’s started to smile more, so everyone has stopped objecting. She sits on one of the scratchy chairs in the lobby across from his and frowns.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asks him, as she pulls out a bag of Lays and swaps them with his Doritos. 

“Why does everyone keep asking me that today?” Bellamy tears open the potato chips and pops one in his mouth, still smiling even as he chews.

Charlotte considers him. “You seem happy. Are you happy?”

Bellamy shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “I think so, yes.”

She chews her sandwich thoughtfully. “Well, you should figure out whatever made you happy and keep doing it.”

He thinks about it again. He is still still single, still still has a dead end job, is still failing himself, and still, the only difference is—

He decides to see Clarke after lunch.

She is sitting behind her desk, pretending not to notice that the two students who had come in with headaches are playing games on their phones.

“I think someone drugged me.” Bellamy says, and begins pacing back and forth in front of her desk. “I think the coffee guy. The cute coffee guy. I think he drugged me. He gave me a special drink, and I think it was drugged.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “What do you think he gave you?”

Which is a reasonable question, with a ridiculous answer. “Something lavender and sparkly,” he says without hesitation, halting his pacing and stopping in front of her. He realizes almost immediately how entirely One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that sounds. “I’m serious.”

Clarke glares at him. “Please leave my office.”

He groans and gestures inarticulately. “Clarke!” He is a little disturbed to find that under the exasperation and confusion he is still stupidly happy. He almost doesn’t mind that Murphy maybe drugged him. Almost.

She sighs and glances behind her to make sure that her students are still not paying attention. They aren’t. “If you think he slipped you something, go confront him. But have you stopped to consider that maybe you’re just feeling happy because the guy you’ve been silently eyeing for months now paid attention to you and made you a special drink?”

Bellamy stops to consider that. “Nope,” he says decisively, and resolves to go speak with Murphy after hours.

Despite the disturbing revelation that he might have been drugged, the thought of seeing Murphy again makes him smile. He’s just really fucking happy. About everything. He’s ecstatic. Even the kid who threw up all over the auditorium can’t dampen his mood.

However, that makes him late in leaving, and by the time he has shucked his jumpsuit, changed into his civvies and gotten to Kaffeine, it has been closed for ten minutes.

He can see Murphy puttering around behind the counters so he knocks, and then again when Murphy seems stuck on ignoring him.

Murphy huffs, wiping his hands on his apron as he approaches the door. “We’re closed, can I help you?” he says as he props it open.

Bellamy pushes past him into the café, and tries to ignore Murphy as he mutters, “please, come right in.”

“What the hell did you give me?” Bellamy demands, suddenly realizing how ridiculous this is, because he is still smiling, and his hands itch to reach out and touch Murphy’s stupid long hair, which he has pulled into a tiny ponytail.

Murphy sidesteps back behind the counter and returns to washing dishes. He shrugs a shoulder, and says quietly, “happiness?”

Bellamy balks. “Excuse me? Is that, like, the street name for something?” He wonders if it shows up on drug screenings. His job does “random” testing of only the maintenance crew every two months, which makes coping with his terrible job even more terrible.

Murphy turns around glancing at him before looking away quickly. “No?” Bellamy sees how long Murphy lingers on his lips, and feels that warm tremble of happiness rush down his spine and settle in his belly.

“Then what did you do?” Bellamy runs his fingers through his own hair and tries not to rip it out., or imagine that it’s Murphy’s, or both. He is out of sorts, happy and anxious and so much lighter than he’s felt in months and it feels so wrong.

Murphy sighs, shaking his head as he finished washing the last cup. “Should have just stuck with inspiration.” He turns around and faces Bellamy, still shaking his head, and Bellamy realizes again how out of his depth he is. “Inspiration—inspiration is quick, it’s like a lightening bolt. Here and then gone in an instant. Nobody stops and goes, ‘huh, where did I get my inspiration from?’” He starts wiping down his espresso machine with a wet towel. “Don’t get me wrong, a lot of them remember they were inspired here and become loyal customers, which is great, but happiness…” 

He meets Bellamy’s eyes for the first time, and he looks apologetic and lost and Bellamy wishes he hadn’t come, because the stupid warm happy feeling in his gut is being to fade and in it’s place is terrible amounts of anxiety.

“Happiness lingers,” Murphy says, and smiles sadly. His hands are moving on rote, wiping down the machine and the counters, while he stares at Bellamy like a toy in a store window or something he’s already smashed to bits. “Which is part of why I don’t go giving it that often.”

Bellamy puts his hands down slowly on the counter to balance himself, but doesn’t break eye contact with Murphy. “You have magical powers?” he asks, because he needs confirmation before he goes and checks himself into the hospital, as clearly he has lost his grasp on reality. He thinks, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, again, and wishes he hadn’t watched it on tv the night before.

Murphy laughs unkindly. “You ever hear of the fair folk?”

Bellamy grips the counter so he doesn’t hit it with his face when he faints, any second now. “Holy shit, you’re a fairy?”

He grumbles. “I prefer fae, considering I’ve been called a fairy in more…derogatory ways.”

Bellamy’s legs decide they are no longer on board with this conversation and he falls. Almost. He realizes he is sitting on a chair that wasn’t behind him a second ago. 

“Holy shit. I’ve gone crazy. The cleaning chemicals have finally gone to my head.” Which he doesn’t think is unreasonable. Sometimes when he can’t bear to clean anymore, he reads the labels until his eyes hurt, so he knows what any number of them could do to him.

Murphy flickers up over the counter, and then is standing in front of the counter leaning casually on it, and behind him, the wet towel is still cleaning the espresso machine with an invisible hand.

“How did you do it?”

Murphy laughs. “What, that? That was just flying. Your eyes are just too slow to follow. Obviously.”

Bellamy shakes his head, tracking up and down Murphy’s body with wonder. “No, I meant the…the happiness—the inspiration.”

Murphy smiles uncomfortably and loses some of the casualness of his stance. “Inspirations just a thought. I just think of something new as I make it, and they get it once they take a sip. It’s pretty fun, actually.”

“And happiness?” Murphy face falls and Bellamy feels a swell of nausea. “Or, um, can you even be telling me this? And aren’t you supposed to be a trickster? Happiness and inspiration doesn’t seem very trickster-like to me.” Embarrassed, he thinks he should try talking to cute boys more so he doesn’t make an ass of himself.

“Eh, you’re not that bad at it.”

Bellamy starts, suddenly realizing how many times he thought about Murphy’s ass or kissing him, or many worse, worse thoughts. “You can—!”

Murphy bows slightly, and it’s pretentious and silly, and Bellamy feels infinitely better. “Read minds, yeah. And no, I should not be telling you this. And…I guess I’m not a very good trickster.”

Bellamy frowns, but he still feels a new spark of warmth. “Aren’t you supposed to be, though? Like isn’t that the defining characteristic of your people?”

Murphy scoffs and speaks with what Bellamy would argue is unwarranted venom. “Well I guess I’m not a very good fairy, either.” He rolls his eyes. “And stop that.”

“I wasn’t do any—”

“You were thinking about me, and I can’t date humans—don’t. I don’t date humans.” Murphy waves a hand lazily and is sitting in a chair, gazing too intently at Bellamy. 

Bellamy feels petulant, and still sort of happy, but not as deliriously as before. He wonders when it wears off and if maybe Clarke was right, and the company has something to do with it after all. “Why?”

“It has warn off. And telling humans is against our rules. I dated a man once, and I was punished, just as my mother was punished when she gave birth to me.” He smiles a self-deprecating smile, and Bellamy wants to reach out and grab his hand, and since clearly Murphy can read his thoughts and isn’t moving said hand, Bellamy does it. His eyes are wet, and Bellamy wonders how many people he gets to talk about this with. He can’t imagine it’s a very large number. “We were banished to this realm, and when she died, they allowed me back. When I made the same unpopular choice as her, they punished me, but differently, because clearly their methods didn’t work before.” He rolls his eyes.

Bellamy squeezes his hand, actually overjoyed that they’re touching now, and that he knows Murphy also likes men. “What did they do?”

Murphy leans into him, like he’s sharing a secret. “They broke centuries of tradition blah blah blah, and made him fae.”

Bellamy frowns. “You can do that?”

“It’s not really done,” Murphy agrees, “but in this case they saw no other choices. Because naturally, once he saw real, true blooded fae, once he had powers beyond me, what would he possibly see in me?”

“That’s dumb,” Bellamy decides, and squeezes his hand. “That whole plan revolved around your boyfriend being a tool.”

“And yet.” Murphy laughs, but it’s a laugh full of longing, and it makes Bellamy’s heart ache. “And so, I can’t date humans. And, Bellamy, although I appreciate your company, I’m going to make you forget all of this and send you on your way.”

Ah. Well, that explained why Murphy had been so candid. Bellamy finds himself already mourning the lack of relationship he had formed with him. “How do you do that?”

Murphy considers him for a moment, tipping his head and clearly thinking. “You know how vampires do it in movies? It’s kind of like that. You’ll remember going home, drinking, and collapsing into bed.”

Bellamy winces. “Can it not be drinking? I’ve been trying to cut down since I moved here, and a memory like that will only make me feel bad.”

Murphy nods. “Migraine good?” When Bellamy nods in return, smiling, Murphy frowns. “You’re oddly at peace with this, it’s weirding me out.”

Bellamy grins and let’s his thumb wander a little bit on Murphy’s hand. “Well, I’ll still come here. I’ll still get to see you.” From the sudden, and stricken expression on Murphy’s face, he realizes he’s going to lose more than his fae-barista implied. “Oh.” And that hurt more than expected. “Fine, then, I guess. If I’m never going to see you again, will you at least tell me how you gave me happiness?”

Murphy releases his hand, and moves his own to cradle Bellamy’s face, tilting it towards him until their eyes meet. “With my tears,” Murphy so solemnly that he is sure the barista is fucking with him, and then thinks, how perfectly ironic, before everything fades away.

The next morning, Bellamy finds himself at odds with everything. His skin is itchy, his clothes are too tight, and he can’t remember where he goes usually to get coffee, which is honestly the only thing that gets him out of bed. His hair is too long and his nails are too short, and he remember having a monster of a migraine, but he didn’t take his migraine pills or crack into his store of hyper-caffeinated Mountain Dew, which is strange.

He takes a shower, checks his phone, and is halfway to Kaffeine, running, when he realizes he’s only wearing one shoe. 

He opens the door to the café unnecessarily hard, and it jiggles frantically. He can see Murphy turn around to see what the fuss is about, and then his eyes go wide. Good, Bellamy thinks, he has the upper hand here. He immediately loses the notion when Murphy says his name.

“Bellamy! What are you—” 

Bellamy glances around at the full café and says, “Can you?” and wiggles his fingers vaguely, to signal magic, or closing, or do you have a backroom. He’s really not sure what he’s going for or what he believes at the moment.

Murphy shoots the café a look, and it freezes, all around them, like he pressed pause on a video. “Okay, what the fuck.”

Bellamy gapes, blushing, embarrassed and in awe. “I honestly thought you were going to admit that you had drugged me last night, so I had my phone recording the entire time. I saw it this morning and I thought it was a hoax, so I came down here to clarify. And clearly it wasn’t a hoax, because you just a paused a shitload of people like it was Netflix,” Bellamy babbles.

Murphy is still wide-eyed and kind of panicked. “But you can’t know. It’s not allowed. And we—”

Bellamy interrupts him. “We are going out on a date tonight, and if your people punish us for it, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Bellamy says, much more authoritative than he feels. “Unless you don’t like me?”

Murphy rolls his eyes, which are a little teary, and says, “Yes, obviously.”

He reaches forwards and wipes away the tears on Murphy’s cheeks. “Good. It’s my turn to make you happy.”

“Cheesy,” Murphy says, laughing unexpectedly. “Terrible and cheesy.”

Which Bellamy thinks is the perfect way for this to start. “Oh, can you magic me up another shoe? I seem to be missing one.”

Murphy does. Bellamy is so blindingly happy, he even overlooks the fact that it’s pink (until Clarke alerts him to it an hour later).

**Author's Note:**

> Tadah prompt me/bother me/etc on [tumblr](www.racetrackthehiggins.tumblr.com)


End file.
